URGENCH, Uzbekistan (UCAN) -- It is now two weeks since the priest and brother running the Catholic parish in Urgench began getting water from their Muslim neighbor, because the water pipes in their church froze.

So desperate did the situation get, that at one point Father Stanislaw Rochowiak and Brother Stanislaw Vrzaszczak decided to close the church and leave for the warmer facilities of the nearest other Catholic parish, in Bukhara, about 380 kilometers away.

With the mercury dropping to minus-35 degrees Celsius, ice on the doors and windows, and electricity cuts, the priest wondered how they could keep Blessed Mary, Mother of Mercy Church open.

On Jan. 27, the day after the pipes froze, he announced at Mass they would temporarily close the church, at least for a week. But later the same day Father Rochowiak canceled that decision, not wanting to desert parishioners in Urgench, 720 kilometers west of Tashkent.

Nonetheless, the situation was dire in the former fashion salon-turned-church, which was rebuilt for worship with priest's quarters in 2003. Earlier the small community of 30-40 Catholics gathered in an apartment.

As the priest explained, lack of gas is a major problem. "We had to switch off the gas heater as it could not provide hot water for the heating system or for the taps," Father Rochowiak told UCA News.

Instead he unplugged the gas pipes from two heaters and connected them to two makeshift stoves called burzhuika. But these movable cast-iron stoves were hardly enough to warm one room. Even in the kitchen, the warmest room, ice covered the door and aluminum window frames.

The cold has forced the two Conventual Franciscans to live in one room that three small electric heaters can warm to about 10 degrees, assuming the electricity is not cut off. Local people have gotten used to the power cuts.

At Sunday Mass, two candles did little to augment the weak sunlight that filtered through the small windows, and people could hardly make out anything in their songbooks.

Father Rochowiak said the installation of a special gas pump would improve the situation. But the church will still have to share pressure in the gas pipes with many other buildings and private houses.

Even so, some people live in even more desperate conditions.

Tamara, an elderly parishioner has to pay her neighbors to buy bread for her and her husband, as she cannot get out. She broke her wrist when she fell while walking to Mass along an icy road a month ago.

"It is like in World War II, when bread was distributed in exchange for government coupons," she said. She lives on the outskirts of Urgench, where bread is delivered to shops once a day.

Bread is not her only problem, however. As with the church, there is no water in her rundown two-room apartment, because the water pipes are frozen. Tamara pays for buckets of water that people bring her from the river.

In downtown Urgench, a city of more than 150,000 people, residents are luckier because the gas pressure is better. In one of the city's few hotels, the receptionist claimed the heating was tolerable there as well as in government and business premises.

Parishioner Galina, a pensioner, lives near the center of town and has no problems with gas pressure but says her heating system is worn out.

During Soviet rule, prior to Uzbekistan's independence in 1991, the state maintained the system of radiator pipes in apartments. Now people have to pay for repairs, which many people, like Galina, find a financial burden.

For the church, talk of closing is past. Father Rochowiak bought an electricity generator to ride out the cold spell and plans to install the special gas pump when the temperature rises.

Referring to the generosity of their Muslim neighbor in supplying water for the church, the priest said the local people, who are virtually all Muslims, are happy the building was turned into a church rather than a restaurant that could be noisy and attract a rowdy crowd.

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